PrintSustainable Urban Development and Urban Farming
Here, we’ll look at some examples of how sustainable urban development has been achieved.
Urban Transit
Copenhagen Calms Its Traffic
Recall the "Cycling as a social norm in Copenhagen" video in Module 4. We have seen that getting people to choose transit can be a collective action problem, and the choice of transport mode can be supported or constrained by urban design. Here's another video (7:22 minutes) showing the efforts that have been made in Copenhagen to ensure that cars do not interfere with people. This approach known as traffic calming has been highly popular in Copenhagen despite it being located in cold, snowy Denmark.
JAN GEHL: In Copenhagen, we had a great influx of cars starting in the middle of the '50s. We called it "The Car Invasion." And by the early '60s, it started to be really bad.
And in 1962, it was decided to take the cars out of the main street of Copenhagen. It's a one-kilometer-long street. There was great debate and discussion, it will never work.
All these businesses of will go broke, and the weather is not good enough for being outdoors in Denmark. But it was closed anyway. That was the start of a long trek where, in small installments, improvements have been made to the pedestrian landscape to the public spaces.
IDA AUKEN: We actually have 18 squares now that used to be parking lots. And when they started shutting them down, and when they made the main pedestrian street here, people were saying, no, this is not Italy. People do not use the public space.
What are you thinking? They don't go walking like, just to take a stroll. And look what happened.
[POP MUSIC]
GIL PENALOSA: I think one of the wonderful things of pedestrian places is that they always surprise you. You don't know what's going to happen. Can we even imagine, for a second, what these pedestrian streets would be like if there were cars on it?
For example, these kids here with the hats, that's the symbol of graduation. They just finished their high school. They are graduating today.
They are going crazy. They are going into the fountains. And we see people also sitting on the floor. I mean, it's so nice and so well taken care of, that people can sit on the floors.
IDA AUKEN: People want to be with people. And that means we go where people are, where there are space for walking, for expressing yourself. For instance, yesterday I went down by the water. And in front of the Royal Theatre, there's this boardwalk. And there was outdoor tango all night.
NICOLE JENSEN: I mean, they're meeting each other. They're having a coffee. They're just chatting.
They're riding their bikes. They're walking. They're walking their dogs.
They're hanging out with their kids. Like, it's just amazing. They're just living. It's the perfect example of public space and how to do it right.
JAN GEHL: So we've seen this gradual transition of the city of Copenhagen, from a traffic-infested city to really, a people-oriented city, which is quite lovely.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NIELS TORSLOV: The philosophy of this is that if you can keep speed down, say, 30 k or 40 k, you will not have so many accidents. And if you have accidents, they will not be very severe. So that's the basic idea, that if we want to transfer our urban environment into something for human beings, you have to reduce the speed as one of the first things. I have very few examples with the 15 k, actually.
JAN GEHL: We have a number of streets, which we call pedestrian priority streets, where pedestrians have the right of way. But you can have bicycles. You can have cars.
GIL PENALOSA: One of the reasons why it's such a wonderful, walkable place, Copenhagen, is because they have lowered the speed in all of the neighborhoods. I think that in North America, we need to create fantastic pedestrian facilities and cycling facilities along the interiors. But in the neighborhoods, we have to lower the speed below 20 miles an hour. And not only just by putting up signs, but putting up physical barriers.
NIELS TORSLOV: One of the best ways of keeping speed down is actually to use our humps. Because by the humps, you are very, very sure that the speed stays down. Because if you don't have this, you will have guys-- usually guys-- going much too fast in a low-speed area because they can.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We are standing in front of the old meat market in Copenhagen. And some years ago, there was a lot of heavy traffic coming in, in the morning, especially. So when they closed down the meat market we were thinking, well, got to better change this street. And this is a very central part of Copenhagen. So there's a lot of people living here, and a lot of enthusiasm about also using space for everything else than traffic.
GIL PENALOSA: This is a wonderful street. And can you imagine the difference of quality of life for all of these thousands of condos? And in the middle, they'd built this fantastic park.
NIELS TORSLOV: What's left is actually only a very narrow-- we called it shared-space solutions, where cars, at a very slow speed, and also bicycles and pedestrians can move around each other without really any kind of regulation, as long as the speed is low.
GIL PENALOSA: There are some places where they've got nice benches and restaurants on the side. You go to the next block, and there is a small basketball court. And you go to the next corner, a skateboard park. And then in some of the sides, you have fruits and vegetables that are being sold on the street. And then in another block, you have flowers.
MIKAEL COLVILLE-ANDERSEN: In the Meatpacking District here, we have a lot of new bars opening up. And all the bikes that we're standing around here, it sort of looks like this outside every bar. It's an amazing social network. You ride past cafes and you see bikes parked next to the cafe. It makes the whole city accessible and very, very human.
NIELS TORSLOV: You know, these environments are very attractive for urban living. And it really attracts people to be on the street. And it also raises the price for all those apartments up here. Because this is attraction. I mean, this is urban, trendy lifestyle that we are offering here, by redesigning our street for human beings.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JAN GEHL: We have 7,500 outdoor cafe seats, which are out for 10 months a year. As all over Europe, in a capitalistic society, if things are not good for business, they will be changed. And what we see in Denmark and all the other European countries, and we even now also see it in New York, in the Broadway area, that when these people-friendly schemes go in, the businesses actually thrive.
GIL PENALOSA: From 6:30, seven o'clock in the morning till midnight, you see people constantly, people coming by. And it's also great for the business. When they were going to create these pedestrian places, initially the retail were very much opposed to it. But afterwards, they found that the best commercial places in the city are their pedestrian streets.
MIKAEL COLVILLE-ANDERSEN: It's anthropology. It's part of the social fabric of the city, that there are pedestrians and cyclists all around you at all time. It's human. This adds an amazing level of social community to a city. And I really think that this is one of the main reasons that Copenhagen is, time after time, selected as one of the world's most livable cities.
IDA AUKEN: I can't even imagine what would happen if somebody said hey, let's turn this square into a parking lot. That would be drama in Copenhagen. So as soon as you win it back, the public space, win it back for human beings and pedestrians, then it's ours and you can't take it away again.
By now, Copenhagen’s traffic calming program has been so successful for so long that people often take it for granted that Copenhagen just is this way. Walking and, in particular, cycling have become very deeply embedded in Copenhagen’s culture. This can be seen in the popular blog Cycle Chic, which looks at the fashions of Copenhagen cyclists. The idea of bicycle chic has spread to other parts of the world, including the United States. All this helps establish walking and cycling as a social norm in Copenhagen, such that people there would find it unusual to drive places.
Curitiba Blossoms With Buses
You may have never heard of it before, but Curitiba, Brazil has the best bus system in the world. The city today has about 2 million people, about the same size as Phoenix, Arizona. Indeed, Curitiba and Phoenix have had about the same population for the last 200 years. But while Phoenix was designed predominantly for the automobile, Curitiba was designed for the bus. Curitiba chose the bus because it could not easily afford to build a subway system. By designing the city around the bus, it found it could get subway-quality performance for a fraction of the cost.
At the heart of Curitiba’s bus system is a series of bus rapid transit routes on dedicated streets going into the city center. These bus lines have stations where passengers pay before getting on the bus, expediting the process considerably. During peak hours, buses run about one minute apart from each other, so riders don’t have to wait a long time. Curitiba zoned the bus lines for high-density development to increase the number of people who could easily ride these buses, thereby making them more effective. Check out the 8:03 minute video below for further details about Curitiba's public transit system.
Curitiba’s BRT. The system that inspired Bus Rapid Transit Around the World.
ENRIQUE PENALOSA (Former Mayer of Bogota): We learned a lot from Curitiba. We copied the bus system from Curitiba.
ISMAEL BAGATIN FRANCA (Engineer, URBS): Our goal is to prioritize the flow of people. The city is not made up of machines, it is made of people, so we have to give people the priority.
JAIME LERNER (Former Mayor of Curitiba): When we started, the whole idea that every city which is close to one million people should have a subway. And at that time, Curitiba had 700,000 people. The subway should have speed, reliability, comfort, and good frequency. We started to imagine, could we have on surface all these conditions?
PRESENTER: Today in the city of Curitiba we have 1.750 million inhabitants. And including the greater metropolitan area of Curitiba we have 3.250 million people.
CLEVER UBIRATAN TEIXEIRA DE ALMEIDA: We have different kinds of services within our transport system, including the BRT, which is, our line with the greatest capacity.
JAIME LERNER: We started with one line, with 25,000 passengers a day. But this system is being improved and now is transporting two million, 300,000 passengers a day, which is the same number of the subway of San Paulo.
KENNTH KRUCKEMEYER: 75% of the people in Curitiba get to work on a bus every morning. A city like Phoenix has exactly the same population as Curitiba over the past 250 years. And yet, in Phoenix, 1% of the people go to work on a bus.
CLEVER UBIRATAN TEIXEIRA DE ALMEIDA: We have a system on a dedicated lane with a higher average speed with the same-level boarding which moves passengers in and out the vehicles faster. Advanced fare collection also contributes for a faster boarding.
ISMAEL BAGATIN FRANCA: Today we have 5 axis, corridors, where we have exclusive lanes.
JAIME LERNER: A normal bus in a normal street transports X passenger per day. If you have a double-articulated bus, a double accordion in a dedicated lane, paying before entering the bus and boarding at the same level, you can have four times more passengers per day in the same space. OK, one bus, 300 passengers, every 30 seconds is 36,000 passengers, per hour, one direction, which is the number of a subway.
CLEVER UBIRATAN TEIXEIRA DE ALMEIDA: The integrated system has various types of lines, such as the “alimentadoras” that operate in residential neighborhoods far from downtown, bringing people to the bus terminals, where they can exchange buses without paying another fare and use the express lines. With the direct lines that also use the tube stations, and have less stops. We have the “interbairros”, which cover a perimeter. We have 6 “interbairros” that connect all transportation axis.
PRESENTER: I’m waiting for the South Circular bus. It’s good because it covers the whole region.
PRESENTER: We do the route six times which takes exactly six hours. I don’t have any complaints. This is one of the best we have. It’s possible to cross the city from here. The traffic is not as bad as people say.
LUIS PATRICIO: Unfortunately, during the last decade, the average speed of the buses has been declining. This is not exactly the problem of the public transportation system, but because of the increasing number of cars in the city.
Dr. FABIO DUARTE: Every time, when people say, for instance, well, the subway system would be better for the city, because then we could put the bus out of the city, the traffic would be better, because all the mass transportation would be under the ground. It's a better way of seeing the problem, because the problem is not the people who use the buses, but the people who use cars. So I think to incentivize the BRT system and put more buses on the streets, it's good for us.
CLEVER UBIRATAN TEIXEIRA DE ALMEIDA: Since its creation, we have been improving these corridors. We have a project to allow bypassing in the dedicated bus lane, that intends to extend the capacity of the bi-articulated buses in the dedicated lanes.
ISMAEL BAGATIN FRANCA: The Boquerião axis will have smart traffic lights, that will identify the bus and let it pass.
PRESENTER: The system could be way more efficient if it had integration and had been planned for the bicycles.
CLEVER UBIRATAN TEIXEIRA DE ALMEIDA: Cyclists use of dedicated bus lanes is dangerous. It may seem comfortable for the cyclist at first, because it’s a wide lane and there’s not a lot of vehicles using this lane, but it’s dangerous for the cyclists and for the users of public transportation as this lane is used by large vehicles, the bi-articulated, which carry up to 270 people.
CAROLINE SAMPONARO: So the major lesson that New York City should take from Curitiba with regard to bicycle planning is that when bus rapid transit is brought into a city, bicycles need to be factored into the designs. So all of the old bus rapid transit lines in the city don't incorporate bicycles at all. But the city in Curitiba is now realizing that bicycles want to ride on the streets that have been redesigned and made so much calmer.
Dr. FABIO DUARTE: The new line, the green line, we have the two bus lanes, the bypass lanes, and we have the bike lane.
PRESENTER: I live right here in Curitiba. I’m working in the Green Line.
PRESENTER: The green line was a federal highway. It was transferred to the city, and we were able to make it a transportation axis.
CLEVER UBIRATAN TEIXEIRA DE ALMEIDA: We are building a linear park. The bike path will follow the sidewalk. All 18km of the Green Line will have a bike path.
ISMAEL BAGATIN FRANCA: You need to take care of land use and transportation together, to induce city growth.
Dr. FABIO DUARTE: We can go from the bus stop to the stores, or the house, et cetera, almost each 100 meters, we have a kind of crossing street. This gives to the city a permeability, so people can walk around and used the stores, et cetera.
CLEVER UBIRATAN TEIXEIRA DE ALMEIDA: It’s not just a transportation corridor. There is a whole urban planning setting that is also important. Sometimes people think that simply building a dedicated bus lane will solve the transportation problem.
JAIME LERNER: There is no end for creativity. If you want creativity, cut one zero from your budget. If you want sustainability, cut two zeroes. If you want to make it happen, do it fast.
Bogota Gets Its Exercise
In the American imagination, the South American nation of Colombia is commonly associated with the drug trade. But Colombian drug cartels are fading. Meanwhile, Colombia has been very active in sustainable development. In one example of this, its capital city, Bogota, has emerged as the world leader in weekly car-free events known as Ciclovias.
The Bogota Ciclovia happens every Sunday and holiday. Cars are forbidden or significantly restricted on 120 km (75 miles) of streets. In general, the presence of automobiles on our streets is a threat not only to the environment but also to children and anyone else wishing to use the streets. The streets can then be used safely and comfortably for cycling, walking, and skating. The streets also feature dances, aerobics, and other outdoors activities. The Ciclovia is a way for people from all walks of life to get some exercise and fresh air. Today, similar events can be found across the world, but none are as large as Bogota’s. Watch the following 9:41 minute video about the Bogota Civlovia.
PARTICIPANT: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
PARTICIPANT: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
KARLA QUINTERO: So it's 2 o'clock today and the Ciclovia is almost over. We've had a really long day. We got up at 5:00 in the morning and we got to see how it all started, everything from packing up the vendor stations in the trucks to barricading the streets and closing it to cars. It was pretty light traffic at the beginning because the weather wasn't so great, but at about 8 o'clock it started getting packed. It's a really beautiful way to see the city. There's just tons of people, all different kinds, all different ages. There's even a segment called the Recreovia, and this is absolutely great because they have about 20 stages with aerobics instructors and rhumba instructors, and they're giving free classes to any citizen that wants to participate. It's really something beautiful to see.
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
GUILLERMO PENALOSA: When we were starting the Ciclovia, when I was commissioner of parks, sports, and recreation, we were going to increase from 13k, which is about 8 miles, to over 90k. And we needed a lot of people to work on it. So we put an ad in the paper saying we need supervisors of the Ciclovia and these are the requirements. We got 20 resumes and we were expecting over 200.
So at the time the number one program on Colombian's TV was Baywatch, so we put an ad in the paper saying we need Bikewatch. Tall, handsome, athletic, blah, blah, blah, and we got 1500 resumes, which shows that social marketing works. And so now these people are called Bikewatch, and they're like the managers of the Ciclovia.
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
CICLOVIA WORKER: It's the biggest program around the world. And doing sport 120 kilometers in a city is so different, it's strange. And always we are as university students. And it's a good job because we have enough time for that kind of labor.
CICLOVIA WORKER: This is beautiful, man, because we work for the city. Everybody smiles at you. This is very beautiful work.
KARLA QUINTERO: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
KARLA QUINTERO: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
PARTICIPANT: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
GUILLERMO PENALOSA: The obesity rate in the US have skyrocketed. Almost every state has obesity. Not overweight. Obesity. And how else can you get thousands and thousands of people doing physical activity? So then the infrastructure is there. It's free. The roads are already there. All you've got to do is close it. You need operational costs to set it up, and then you can get this fantastic idea, which is like a party that everybody attends. The rich and the poor, and the young and the old, and everybody.
PARTICIPANT: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
PARTICIPANT: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
[DANCE MUSIC PLAYING]
KARLA QUINTERO: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
PARTICIPANT: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
CICLOVIA WORKER: In the Recreovia we have different activities from 8 o'clock to 1:00 o'clock. The first station that we have is a basic aerobics class. The second class is stretching. The next class is class for children. In the classes for children we practice with the parents and the children, activities with music.
KARLA QUINTERO: How excited do people get?
CICLOVIA WORKER: A lot. They are very happy. That prefer come here instead of being in the house.
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
KARLA QUINTERO: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
CICLOVIA WORKER: I give classes.
KARLA QUINTERO: You give?
CICLOVIA WORKER: I'm the teacher.
KARLA QUINTERO: Of which one?
CICLOVIA WORKER: All the classes. This is the uniform. [LAUGHS]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CICLOVIA WORKER: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
GUILLERMO PENALOSA: A lot of cities are thinking of doing activities like Ciclovia. Guadalajara started only two years ago with eight miles, and now they are at 16 miles. Santiago, Chile started. In Paris, France they close down roads. In Ottawa in Canada there is, like, 35 miles of Ciclovia on Sundays from May to September. So I think that there are some cities in the US that are thinking about it, such as Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, Portland, New York. And this is something that any city could do, cities of 50,000 people or cities of 10 million people.
Urban Farming
Urban farming can take a variety of forms but, conceptually speaking, it refers to crop and livestock production within cities and surroundings. Urban farming (also known as urban agriculture) takes advantage of every inch of private or public space and can involve anything from rooftop farming to balcony gardening, from farming in parking lots to farming along roadsides. Urban farming plays a large part in contributing to sustainable urban development. As more and more people are living in cities, urban agriculture is emerging as an attractive means of supplying urbanites with food. At the same time, urban farming is an important strategy for reduction of hunger and poverty, improvement in resident health, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Detroit (and the state of Michigan generally) makes a good case study for urban agriculture. Watch minutes 16:29-22:05 of the PBS video below to see how urban farming helps communities in food deserts (places with no grocery stores offering fresh produce) access more affordable and healthier food and allows people to make a living by selling their food in local markets.
Narrator: Modern food production promised to feed the world on the cheap. But are the costs proving to be more than we can bear? Fruits and vegetables are trucked around the country and around the world, and most people have no idea who grew them or how they got here. Isn't there a better way? From the rooftops of New York City to the vacant lots of Detroit, there's a growing movement to change the way we eat. Join us as Food Forward explores the explosion of urban agriculture across America. And meet the food rebels who are growing food right where we live.
[rock guitar music]
Dr. Dickson Despommier, Author, “The Vertical Farm”, Columbia University, NY: Here we are in New York City. Five boroughs, 8 million people, most densely populated area in the world. There are 28,000 restaurants in New York City. If New York City were to decide tomorrow to stop importing food, we'd have a big problem right now. Most of us live in cities now and over 50% and maybe 80% in 20 years from now. We love each other. We like to be with each other. We like to sit down to a good meal together. And we all want to know what's in our food, so why not grow it where we live?
John Mooney, Chef, Bell Book & Candle, New York City, NY: My name is John Mooney. I've basically been in the restaurant business my whole life. I've never made money doing anything other than being part of a restaurant crew from start to finish. Since about 12,13 years old. I have done some conventional farming projects to supply restaurants that I've done in the past. It's very difficult to manage, very difficult to maintain. So, I looked into alternative forms of farming. In an urban setting, I felt with the dead space of the rooftop, the technology was smart. It just makes sense. We're in the West Village of Manhattan. We're standing here in the middle of my hydroponic rooftop farm. In the beginning, there was a lot of curiosity as to what was going on up here, because it looks kind of space aged from a distance. And I'd explained it by phone or in person. And now I'm at the point where I tell everyone, you have to see it. The seed sits inside this net where the roots grow inside the tower. This big cylinder has a pump that trickles water down the sides and that feeds the roots and that recycles the nutrients through the bottom is a big base filled with around four gallons of the nutrients, which is fed naturally by gravity.
What I do is I pull the cup out of the tower. So, you see how nice and lightly colored the roots are. And look how long they get, right? I mean, that's strong. Let's look at this arugula right here, okay. We just pulled that a few hours ago. I broke it down. Roots attached. You see what I'm doing. And I believe it totally makes a difference. The flavor is absolutely amazing. When you enter the garden from the stairwell and you open that door. It's kind of like a sanctuary of sorts.
Andrew Coté, Urband Beekeeper, New York City, NY: It's down here. But I have… am I going to get lucky? It's going to be a hydrant. One of the biggest problems with urban beekeeping is parking a truck. It really is. Some honey for you ladies? Okay. You're doing the right thing. You're welcome. Some honey for you, soldier? Miel batido. Whipped honey. No, you're sweet enough? Honey for you, miss. That's the plain whipped. We also have whipped with cinnamon.
Shopper: The local honey is really good for allergies.
Andrew Coté: Local honey is very good for allergies. Where do you live?
Shopper: In East Village.
Andrew Coté: In the East Village. This honey is from 14th and Second.
Shopper: Okay.
Andrew Coté: So, it's very close to where you live. I think this is from Brooklyn. The Manhattan honey has higher rent and the Brooklyn honey has more attitude.
Inside the hive, there's the queen bee, the worker bees who are females, and the drones who are males. Once the queen has been mated, she makes babies. She lays up to 2000 eggs a day. One beehive will produce something around 80 to 120 pounds of honey per year. And I know they help pollinate the community gardens, the window sills, the rooftop farms that saturate the city. This is my office, the rooftops of what is to me the greatest city in the world.
Karen Washington, Urban Farmer, Garden of Happiness: It's showtime! Hello. Good morning. How are you? Ola. como estas? It's all in a presentation. We're in the Tremont section of the Bronx. It's an area that has, as you can look around, a lot of fast food restaurants, not a lot of access to fresh food. And so, as urban growers and community gardeners, since we grow it, we know it. We decided to bring fresh produce to this neighborhood. My garden is Garden of Happiness. It started 23 years ago. It was a vacant lot. Most of the boroughs in New York City in the late seventy’s and eighty’s had so many vacant lots. So, with two things to do, either to let the dirt and garbage accumulate, or take that vacant lot back and start growing food. The biggest joy I have is when a customer comes and they'll say, where are those collard greens? And I say, I got them for you. No matter what, I will grow collard greens. Hopefully we can instill that into young people to really know where their food comes from. Not that everyone could be a farmer, even though I would love that. I would love that. But at least everyone can be an educated consumer.
Ben Flanner, Head Farmer, Brooklyn Grange: It made sense to try to do something in the city for a number of different reasons. Growing food as close as possible to the consumers that eat it. Utilizing all this open space that we have, all these roofs that just kind of have the sun beating down on them all day. The soil is about 25% lighter than a typical topsoil would be if you just stuck a shovel in the ground. So, that makes it more suitable to roofs,
obviously, just because it is lighter. The stones kind of rise to the top and they're all porous. They all have holes in them. And if you feel it, you can just tell it's light.
I'm going to pick that kakutza too. Look at that. It's awesome, isn't it? People like the fact that it's locally grown, and they almost expect it sometimes. For a market like this, it should be the case. This market's been great for the neighborhood. People are pretty excited about it and thanking us for being here.
Gwen Schentz, Farm Manager, Roberta’s: This is Roberta's. It's a restaurant located in Bushwick, Brooklyn. It's almost three years old now, and we make pizza. Right now, we're making a pizza with tomatoes from Brooklyn Grange. They're really nice heirloom tomatoes pizza kitchen will slice up, and sometimes they'll actually make a sauce out of them. It's really nice for me because I work both at the Grange and here at Roberta's. So, I'll be coming back from the farm, and I'll load up my truck with tomatoes and bring them here. And these guys will make pizza and everything kind of comes together. I always thought that to be a farmer, I'd probably have to leave New York and move outside the city. But it turns out that I can get the best of both worlds right here.
Dr. Dickson Despommier: Where does our food come from? If we could produce it inside the study, you could save on transportation and spoilage and packaging and unpackaging, and you could market it right at the bottom of the building. So, you could have a farm with lots of layers in it, maybe 10 or 15 stories tall, fully integrated with hydroponics and aeroponics. You could even have aquaponics in the basements raising tilapia or striped bass or mollusks. And we know how to do all that already. Frustrating part of it is, why don't we do it?
Will Allen, CEO & Farmer, Growing Power: I bought the last remaining registered farm in the city of Milwaukee in 1993, and I made a pledge to the city that I would hire young people from the community to work at the farm. It struck a chord with a lot of folks in Milwaukee, and I started getting calls and requests for me to work with the different nonprofits and schools. We started adding, like, the aquaponics, the worm system, started putting up hoop houses, the animals, all these different pieces. We have a very innovative renewable energy system that heats the water so we can grow tilapia. And also, that heated water helps keep our greenhouses warm during the winter. Food is the most powerful thing in our lives. It's the most powerful thing in community development. People are just realizing that if they want to be healthy, they're going to have to take control of their food in their communities. We need to really scale this thing up.
Hendry Hebert, Facility Manager, Sweet Water Organics:Aquaponics is the conjoined systems from fish production and plant production, bringing them together in a symbiotic relationship. These three systems here, E, F and G are designed for lettuce right now. We started with an upscale model of Will Allen's. Changed a few things on it, tried to make it a little more efficient and a little faster. We have a place for the fish to live, a place for the plants to live, a place for the bacteria to live, and a pump to push the water all through it. The pump provides all the propulsion, just like in the river or the stream. And we've just captured that into a little bitty box. And there's a variety of sizes in here.
Theresa Kopak, Chief Executive Director, Sweet Water Organics: What I love the most about my job is knowing every day when I go in there, I'm working on something that will directly impact the well-being of others. No matter how tired any of us are, we get up in the morning and we want to make this happen and be available to people worldwide. That this is something that can be replicated in any city, in any abandoned factory building warehouse.
Theresa Kopak: Hello. Hi, Peter. I have fish for you.
Peter Sandroni, Owner & chef, La Merenda: Excellent. Cool. That's great. I love the fact you guys are just down the street. I think that a lot of people have a misconception of what tilapia is like. We take Swiss chard, fingerling potatoes and shallots, all grown locally, sauté it all together. And we sauté the tilapia that we have seasoned and dusted in flour. We brown some butter in another sauté pan, and we just bring it all together at the end, put the fish on top of the vegetables, and then top the fish with the brown butter and minus the salt, pepper and flour. Everything is local. We call it the All-Wisconsin Dish, and it's a really, really simple dish, and everyone seems to like it a lot. We figure with 34 systems in this building, at that 7500 fish every five to seven day mark, it will employ like, 40 people. Here we'll provide food for the three to five mile radius around us. It can be done anywhere.
Will Allen:I believe we're creating a new industry that could create thousands of jobs. The thing that we do best is inspire people to want to go out and get something started, to do something. To really inspire them.
Abeni Ramsey, Farm Manager, Dig Deep Farms: My name is Aveni Ramsey, and I'm an urban farmer. Through my experience as a mother living in West Oakland, there was a time when I was having a hard time feeding my kids and we were eating Top Ramen. And because of my upbringing, I knew that that wasn't right. But that's what I could afford because I could buy it in a pack like this for like, $5, and they sold it at the corner store. So, I was riding my bicycle through West Oakland and I saw a sign posted by City Slicker Farms for fresh produce. And there was the farm stand. It was beautiful produce. And so, I started going there, and then I found out that they will build planter boxes in your backyard. So, I applied, and I had them come, and they built the planter boxes. I grew everything we needed in the backyard. I didn't have to buy any produce. Then I got a flock of chickens and we then had our protein source, eggs. My transition has been unbelievable. I am the farm manager of Dig Deep Farms and the owner of City Girl Farms. We are right now harvesting for our CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture Produce Box, which is delivered to our subscribers on a weekly basis.
You guys need clippers. The whole idea of urban agriculture. What gets me is that people act like it's some new and revolutionary idea, but people have been farming in the city since the time there were cities. We've partnered with Flora Restaurant and this great chef, Rico Rivera, who will be purchasing produce from us directly.
Rico Rivera, Chef, Flora Restaurant: Yeah, this guy's incredible. Today from Albany, we received some nettles. Wild nettles. I'm thinking off the top of my head, the nettles. We're going to throw them in one of our chickpea ragus. In the pan, we saute some onions, throw in the chickpeas, some roasted delicata squash, some roasted onions. Then we saute up with a little bit of brown sugar. The nettles complement that real nicely with their earthiness. Toss toss on the plate. Real juicy with a grilled flatbread on the top. It's amazing. You can't get closer to source than what we're doing here. I mean, again, they're probably 6 miles away. We order, she picks it's here in the morning.
Abeni Ramsey: Hi, it’s Dig Deep!
Dig Deep Customer: With my fresh vegetable! I appreciate this so much!
Abeni Ramsey: Of course. All right.
It's a modern idea that you get your food from a store and that's the only way that you get your food. Because you're completely dependent on the grocery store to provide for you what you need. You can live in a community where they don't put grocery stores, where there are no jobs, and where there is limited transportation. And it's like living in the Third World.
[music]
Song Lyrics: In the city. Your dreams flying tigers and wings violence seem to be the only thing depicted on the screen, but it's more to the Motor City. Coming strolling with me got a sidestep to ignorance and stepping the black businesses.
Malik Yakini, D-Town Farms, Detroit, MI: Really, for the last 50 years, Detroit has experienced a decline in population. And so, with the decline in population came a decline in the city's tax base. So, that's impacted the ability of the city to maintain the same infrastructure that it maintained prior to 1950. In 1950, the population of the city was about 2 million, and now it's somewhere about 750,000 or so. There's many neighborhoods in the city of Detroit now where there's no place within walking distance to get fresh produce. And unfortunately, many Detroit residents are eating out of gas stations or out of convenience stores. That, of course, is causing a health cris.
Cornelius Williams, 4-H Farm Advisor, Detroit, MI: And people wonder why they're sick. Number so-and-so yellow, number so-and-so blue is not food. Check the children's cereal and read the label on what's in there, folks! It's killing you! But it does it slowly.
Travis Roberts, Chicken Farmer, Corktown, Detroit: There were a lot of homes in this neighborhood when I was younger, when I was coming up. But as I got older, I watched them decrease by the month. Homes were burned down, tore down. People moved away, and the homes became vacant. People stripped them and then people set them on fire.
Edith Floyd, Growing Joy, Detroit, MI: They stopped burning down all the garages, and people stopped moving out. I had a two-car garage with an apartment upstairs to burn that down too. It felt real bad at first, and then I said, okay, I might as well make it better by adopting a lot and putting a garden on it.
Malik Yakini:Many people have begun looking at urban agriculture as a way to supplement their food sources and to kind of fill the voids that's been created by the departure of supermarkets that were once in Detroit.
Greg Willerer, Brother Nature Produce, Corktown, Detroit: I guess my stomach led me to all this. A lot of us here in Detroit have a hard time finding good local food, healthy food, and somewhat inexpensive food. There's a really strong demand for local and chemical free produce.
Travis Roberts:The idea of having chickens in the city came to me. I was talking to the head chef at Slow's Barbecue, and he was telling me that he would buy eggs from me every week. Then I asked, how many dozen does the restaurant go through? He's like, two cases a week. That's 60 dozen per week that we would buy from you. And so, I figured we would need about 124 chickens, give or take one or two, because some of them don't lay every day. Some chickens won't take to egg laying immediately.
Cornelius Williams: I want you to get a good shot of this okra right here. And you take and harvest it, and you can't beat real okra, and it is delicious. The city is the only place that farmland is increasing. Every time they tear down a house or tear down this, that's potential farmland.
Edith Floyd: I grow all types of greens, tomatoes, okra, corn, beans, eggplants, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, squash, onion, leech, and lot more stuff.
Malik Yakini: We have soaring rates of obesity, both for children and adults. We have soaring rates of hypertension, of high blood pressure, heart disease. But all of those things are to some extent controllable by diet.
Travis Roberts: I was always a heavyset guy until maybe about a year ago when I slimmed up and lost about 125 pounds.
Cornelius Williams: You get exercise, you get good, fresh food. I think living on the farm and eating a better grade of food makes a difference in life. I come out in the garden and work the garden, and as I'm working, I eat some of everything that I, you know, that's in the garden, this is what your body needs fresh. You don't need a salad that's been cut up and been in a bag and went halfway across the country.
Travis Roberts: Everybody's been pretty excited about it. People wanting to come by and see the chickens and people wanting to donate, and people asking, is there any list that I can get on to where I'll be first in line? Is there any line for deliveries? And stuff like that. So, local restaurants have supported even local catering companies have supported us, so we're getting nothing but love.
Edith Floyd: I put it for 14 lot, and they didn't let me have 14 lots. And that's only a quarter of the block.
Andrew Coté: I want the whole block. In spite of the fact that Detroit just has all the ODS stacked against it, Detroiters have this rare opportunity to actually rebuild their city, and we're doing it.
Edith Floyd: I'm willing to do my part. I would take one block at a time, and if nobody want it, I would take the next block. If it's vacant, I'll take it.
[music]
Song Lyrics: From abandoned lots to garden flies the city on the rise from working in the plant back to controlling our lives nine to five only pay the rent dictating how the day is spent and dinner at the drive through just ain't making sense. Got me convinced the only way to make amends is to plant seeds. Where the weeds grow behind the fence. It's a movement in the streets, now. Ask Malik from Detown. We farming out at Rules Park. The whole city can eat now.
Travis Roberts: My vision for Detroit is seeing people working together. Whether we like it or not, living in Detroit, we are a family and we have to support each other.
[music]
Dr. Dickson Despommier: Everywhere you go in the world now, people are trying to figure out how can they bring their food supply closer to where they live?
Will Allen: I'm not saying that industrial agriculture is going to go away, because it's not.
Malik Yakini: We're not suggesting that gardens can replace supermarkets, but we think that this can be an alternative.
Abeni Ramsey: Look at what the needs are right in your community. Look at what the needs are in your household. I think it's a revolutionary act to plant a tomato plant in your backyard.
John Mooney: Rooftop gardening, to me, is off the hook. It's evolutionary. This is the future. You're looking at it.
Travis Roberts: I'm hoping that people say, look at Trav. He grew up from the same neighborhood that I did. He went through the same stuff that I did, trouble and whatnot. Maybe I can do that's.
Hendry Hebert: If I could be any vegetable, I would probably like to be a tomato.
Ben Flanner: I would probably be an eggplant. I think they're a cool vegetable. They're like super unique.
Dr. Dickson Despommier: Garlic. Definitely garlic. I'm a garlic person. I'm a flavor molecule that wants to get into everybody's cuisine and spice it up.
John Mooney: Right now, I'd be Arugula because I'm Spicy. I'm all hot and bothered. I'm all mixed up with some other sexy ingredients.
Abeni Ramsey: I'd be a Brussels sprout. Brussels sprouts are surprising. They come up, and they look like they might be broccoli. And then it changes and you’re not sure. And they're not easy to grow. But then you get these little nuggets of deliciousness. So, I suppose that's me. I'm always changing. It took me a long time to grow up, but I think I'm now a nugget of deliciousness.
Urban farming can take place basically anywhere. Check out the 3:24 minute video below to find out how people are growing food in recycled car tires in Haiti. On one side, urban farming is a response to food and livelihood insecurity. On the other side, urban farming grows a greener future because food grown locally requires less transportation (or fewer food miles) and therefore reduces ecological footprint.
SPEAKER 1: From United Nations Television, this is UN in Action.
SPEAKER 2: [INAUDIBLE] is a district of Carrefour Feuilles in Haiti and is undergoing some major changes. It's becoming greener.
For some months now, recycled car tires have become ever-present fixtures on the roofs and gardens of homes, from which all kinds of vegetables and spices are growing.
They are part of a project called Urban Agriculture. The goal is to fight against food insecurity.
[? Arnesia ?] Boss, a single mother, is one of the beneficiaries.
SPEAKER 3: Sometimes I wake up in the morning, I have bread, and I could make a soup for the children. But I had to buy vegetables. Now, I can just take them from the garden. This helps a lot and improves the living conditions of the children and the whole family.
SPEAKER 2: With support from local partners, Oxfam, a nonprofit organization assisting the UN stabilization mission, MINUSTAH, with several projects, began setting up a nursery here a year ago.
Peleg Charles, media and communication officer from Oxfam.
SPEAKER 4: We see success in other countries that used urban agriculture to combat food insecurity. On one hand, we help to improve food security in the households. And on the other hand, we help the population to participate in the protection of the environment.
SPEAKER 2: About 100 people, including [? Arnesia, ?] receive seeds, seedlings, agricultural tools, as well as training to grow plants in car tires. Over the past year, Oxfam has purchased nearly 6,000 car tires and over 60,000 seedlings, part of a cooperative effort with several UN agencies to improve food supplies in the country.
Herbs and 10 different kinds of vegetables, such as tomatoes, beets, carrots, and eggplants, are growing in urban gardens. Many are relying on them as an alternative means for enhancing food security and improving livelihood.
SPEAKER 3: From what is growing in my garden, I could also make a living. At the moment, I'm only consuming, but I also want to sell them. Soon I would like to see my garden grow, providing not just food, but also income for the family.
SPEAKER 2: For [? Arnesia, ?] who lives with five children and without a big income, urban agriculture is a blessing. While she will get the seeds and car tires for free from the project for two years, she is already preparing herself for the next step-- creating a garden in her own backyard and learning how to manage it.
This report was produced by Sandra Miller for the United Nations.
Consider This: Urban Agriculture In Cuba
Earlier in this course, we learned that the Green Revolution was, in part, an effort by capitalist countries in the Cold War to get Third World countries to side with them. The Soviet Union was also active in providing agriculture aid to Third World countries such as Cuba.
The world’s largest urban agriculture program comes from Cuba. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Cuba lost its source of aid and thus faced food shortages. As a way to cope, Cuba turned to urban agriculture as a way to feed itself. This agriculture is performed almost entirely without artificial fertilizers and pesticides, simply because Cuba lacks access to these inputs. In some ways, this makes Cuba’s national agriculture system more sustainable and less vulnerable to disruptions in the supplies of these inputs. On the other hand, this system involves more labor and lower yields than is often found elsewhere. Still, as with Cuba’s overall development, much can be learned from its agriculture system.
Check out this Youtube video by Kitchen Gardeners International (6:05 minutes).
ROGER DOIRON: Hi, this is Roger Doiron of Kitchen Gardeners International. I recently had a chance to travel to Havana, Cuba to study its urban farms and gardens as part of a research tour organized by the Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance. That's me there, trying to look like an international researcher. You might be asking, why go to Havana for such an experience.
Most people associate Cuba with another type of revolution, the Communist Revolution led by Fidel Castro in the late 50's. And when they do think of a Cuban agricultural product they can put in their mouths, they're much more likely to think of a cigar than a carrot. But Cuba offers a unique case study for local foods advocates in that it is not only an island nation in terms of its geography but also its economy and politics as a result of being cut off from the world by two important historical events. The first was the embargo imposed upon Cuba by the United States in the early 60's, and which remains in place to this day, making it difficult for Cubans to obtain many products that we take for granted. The second event was the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 which absolutely decimated Cuba's economy.
The Soviet Union had been Cuba's largest source of both trade and aid, and when the Berlin Wall fell, Cuba's exports and imports fell with it, plummeting by 80%. The Cuban government euphemistically referred to the years after 1991 as the so-called Special Period, but the hungry period would have been a more accurate term. Essential items, such as food, medicine, and gasoline, were in critically short supply. There was an old joke in Cuba that soon after Castro seized power in 1959 the signs at the Havana Zoo changed from "Please don't feed the animals" to "Please don't eat the animal's food." And when the special period began in '91, the old joke changed again, taking on an even more unappetizing flavor. But for those who lived through the special period, it was anything but a laughing matter.
Cuban's daily caloric intake dropped by nearly one third, leading to an average weight loss of 20 pounds per person. Although history has played its share of cruel jokes on Cuba, there are some who think that a city like Havana might end up having the last laugh. The experience of living through the special period has forced Havanans to become more resilient, self-reliant, and innovative in their food production. Organic farms and community gardens, known as organoponicos, can now be found throughout the city. Nearly all the seasonal fruit and vegetables consumed by Havana's two million residents are being sourced from gardens and farms located within 30 miles of Havana.
Fossil fuel powered farm machinery is being replaced by people power and animal power, which are more appropriate technologies for the small scale of agriculture typically found in and around cities. Synthetic fertilizers are being replaced by organic compost and animal manure. Monocultures and the synthetic pesticides they require are being replaced with better and more diverse agricultural systems and practices. And perhaps most important of all, small-scale organic farmers and gardeners are being seen as critical to Cuba's Homeland Security and are being valued accordingly. For example, growers of healthy organic fruits and vegetables, like this one I met, are paid three times more than doctors in Cuba, offering a fresh foreign perspective on one way of achieving health care reform.
I came away from the trip feeling inspired, but my enthusiasm was also tempered by the knowledge that I'd seen but a part of a larger and more complex story. Despite its advances in urban agriculture, Cuba still remains heavily dependent on imports of rice, wheat, and dairy products, and the antiquated Soviet Era food rationing regime, put in place in the early 60's, continues today. In fact, when you visit Havana and you see its crumbling colonial buildings and vintage cars, you can't help feel a bit like a time traveler. But when it comes to sustainable urban agriculture, however, a trip to Havana may well be a trip to the future.
Like a cab ride down Havana's timeworn cobblestone streets in a '57 Chevy with no shocks, the journey to sustainable food security is going to be a bumpy ride. If we do look to Havana's urban farms and gardens as one vision for the future, the real question becomes, what's the best road to take to get there. The one question we can't afford to debate is whether or not to get started down this road. , With over a billion hungry people in the world and more people on the way, the globe's special period has already begun, and the time to start that journey is now.
From previous pages, we learned that urban design involves collective action if a city is to be developed in some coordinated fashion. Likewise, the urban sustainable development process involves a mix of government regulations, private market forces, and community self-organization.